


Missing Calcutta

by flightinflame



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-22
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 04:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Bruce missed the land she had taken from him.  But when he thought of running, he realised he had a reason to stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing Calcutta

He missed Calcutta. It had been crowded, noisy, full of violence and vibrance and life, but it had felt like home. No one had asked questions. He'd been a doctor, he'd wanted to help, and that was all most people cared about. He hadn't had any incidents in a long time, and he was being good. He was doing the right thing.

Then she had arrived, with a smile and a gun, and led him back to the world he had fled from. At least they valued him for what he could do, and not the other guy. But they'd been ready to cage him. They hadn't trusted him at all. The people in Calcutta had never flinched from him. They were used to worse.

He shook his head, walking around the lab that Tony had given him. That wasn't fair, at all, and he knew it. She was used to worse as well. And she listened to him, respected him at least. She might not have trusted him, but he had begun to realise that trust was not something that featured in her life.

Some things featured heavily in her life, but friendship and trust were not among them, and that made him feel sorry for her.  
"Do not pity me." She had told him one day as she had passed him on the way up from the gym, and he began to wonder if she could read his thoughts.

She didn't tell him her history. It was private, and he was willing to respect that as much as he could. But the scars told the story and sometimes he couldn't turn a blind eye to what they whispered. He was her doctor. He had to see her wounds.

But she smiled, and laughed, and talked to Clint. It was easy to forget, when you saw her with friends or focussed on work, that there was more to her than what she showed. She hid it well. She could pass as human as well as he could.

After a particularly nasty incident, where he had been drugged and turned against his friends, he thought about going back to Calcutta. He could do nothing of worth here, and what good the other guy did was outweighed by the accompanying bad. He had grabbed a bag, ready to leave life behind like he had done so many times before, and shoved in his few most precious possessions.

When he had straightened up, he found her sat in his chair, reading one of his books.  
"You will miss us if you leave doctor. If that wasn't true, you would already be long gone." 

She made no move to stop him as he walked towards the door, and when he stopped she didn't say anything, only standing to leave when he began to unpack.  
"No..." He whispered, voice barely there. "Don't go. Please."

She returned to him, and took one of his hands in between both of hers.   
"I won't go."   
He thought of their meeting, of how angry he had been, of how he had treated her. He remembered the terror in her eyes when she had been trapped and chased, when she had had to rely on her speed rather than any other skill she possessed.

She didn't look afraid now. There was no need for this. He wasn't at risk of hulking out because he was lonely, they all knew that. He had some self control. But he was lonely, and her hand was in his, and she was smiling.

Just smiling. There wasn't any of the seduction he'd seen her put into it, or any emotion more than fond amusement.  
"You shouldn't keep running. We'll miss you. And anyway, knowing Tony, he's put trackers in your stuff."

He laughed then, looking into her eyes, and realising she didn't fear him at all. After so long of being hated, of being feared, he finally found someone who wasn't scared of him. The look in her eyes showed he wasn't the only one with those thoughts.

"You don't need to keep running. We're here for you, you're one of us. We aren't going to abandon you. It's not going to be a repeat of the past, not any more, not again. You aren't alone..." She smiled, and her hands encircled his waist. "You've got me, you've got all of us."

Her gaze was piercing into his eyes as she smiled.   
"You don't need to run Bruce..."

He leaned in closer, his lips brushing her cheek, and he breathed her name.  
"Natasha."


End file.
